


Harry Potter and the Wizarding Academy

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-23 16:59:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,465
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4884616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter was pushed down a flight of stairs by Dudley Dursley at age seven, leaving him with a limp and a different personality.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Strange News

It started as an ordinary day in the Dursley home. Vernon Dursley was reading his newspaper, his wife Petunia was chattering away to a friend on the phone, and their treasured son Dudley was eating chocolate. The only other member of the household, a small boy with a heavy limp and unruly hair, was doing his best to be invisible.  
There was a dull thud as something dropped into the post slot. Vernon glanced up from his newspaper. Petunia glanced up from her fingernails and paused her conversation. Dudley continued to eat, oblivious.  
“Harry!” Vernon grunted, “get the post, you lazy brat!”  
The small boy rose and made his way painfully to the door. A fat envelope waited for him. It was not a normal envelope. It had no postage on it, and it was sealed with a splot of wax. Most importantly, it was addressed to Harry. He picked it up and stared at it for a long moment, turning it over and over in his small hands. He realised too late that he was taking far too long.  
“HARRY!” came the bellow, “BRING THE POST HERE!”  
Harry scurried (or as close as he could get to a scurry) into the living room. His uncle Vernon glared at him.  
“What is it, then?” he said gruffly.  
“I-it’s a l-l-letter,” Harry squeaked out, “i-it’s addressed t-to m-me.”  
His uncle snatched the letter out of Harry’s trembling hand. Petunia hung up the phone as Vernon tore the beautiful envelope open. He stared at it a long time, his face growing redder and redder as he read. The only sounds he made were small grunts and puffs of air. Petunia craned her long neck to see what he was reading. Harry shifted nervously, and Dudley finally looked up from his sweets. Petunia gasped, and shared a significant look with her husband. Finally, Vernon sat back and settled the letter on his lap.  
“Well,” he sneered, “It looks like some kind people want to relieve us of Harry.”  
Harry looked up sharply.  
“What d-do you mean?”  
“I mean,” his uncle said, smirking, “that we won’t have to bother with you anymore. You’re going to boarding school.”  
“But who’ll do my homework?” protested Dudley.  
“You’re a smart boy, you’ll figure something out,” replied his mother affectionately, “and you! Go pack your things, someone’s going to come for you in the morning.” She threw the letter at him. Harry stumbled off to his closet room under the stairs, where he sat down on the lumpy bed. Hogwarts school of witchcraft and wizardry? Were the Dursleys finally giving up and sending him to an insane asylum? If this is a trick, it’s a very sophisticated trick, he thought as he read the long list of materials. And where was he supposed to get these? One cauldron (pewter, standard size 2). Whatever this was, it had to be better than living here, right? No boarding school could possibly be worse than the Dursleys’.  
So Harry slowly folded his few oversized pieces of clothing into his worn school bag, then folded the letter neatly and set it on top of the bag. Outside, he could hear the Dursleys eating supper, but he was not invited to join. Instead, Harry simply sat in the dark room, puzzling over the letter and his fate, until he fell asleep.


	2. Harry Learns His Story

The next morning he was awakened by a pounding on his door. Harry sat up sleepily, hobbled over to the door and opened it to reveal his aunt, holding out a piece of toast.  
“Someone will be here for you in ten minutes,” she said.  
Harry gobbled down his toast and went to the washroom to try and tame his hair. No use. He sighed and left the hair messy, grabbed his bag and started for the front door just as the doorbell rang.  
Harry’s uncle quickly opened the door to reveal a huge man holding a pink umbrella. Vernon made a small gulping sound, then turned and barked at Harry to come out.  
As Harry limped out into the hall, clutching his small bag and his letter, the giant’s face darkened.  
“What’s this?” he demanded. “What’ve yeh people done to ‘im?”  
“Harry took a tumble down some stairs when he was seven,” Petunia cut in smoothly, “He must have broken something, as he’s been limping ever since.”  
“Yeh mean yeh don’t KNOW?” bellowed the giant, “The boy saved the world! We trusted yeh with ‘im and yeh don’t KNOW why he’s limping?!”  
Harry shrank back, terrified. Save the world? Nothing in the past two days had made much sense, but this was beyond strange.  
“E-excuse me?” he squeaked, “w-what do you m-mean about s-s-saving the world?”  
The giant looked shocked, then angry.  
“You mean you didn’t even tell the boy ‘is own history?” he thundered. “Now, Harry, do yeh mean to say yeh don’t know any of it? About yer parents? About their world?”  
Harry could only shake his head mutely. The giant sighed and took Harry’s bag, suddenly gentle.  
“I’ll tell yeh while we’re shopping. It’s hardly a tale for these great Muggles. And yeh know,” he added, glancing at Harry’s bag, “school doesn’t start for another month.”  
Harry’s face must have fallen because the man quickly promised to find another place for him until then. Then he took Harry’s hand, promised the Dursleys he’d be back to have a word with them, and led Harry out the door.

Harry desperately wished he was an owl, so he could turn his head all the way around. There was no other way to take everything in. From the moment they had entered Diagon Alley he had been overwhelmed by curiosity, but the giant pulled him gently onward, saying that they needed a good quiet place to talk before they could start shopping. Harry’s mind was racing, trying to think of a reason why any of this could be happening. Finally they reached a restaurant and the giant, no, Hagrid, Harry reminded himself, pulled them into a back booth.   
“Now,” he said. “you can tell me how yeh got that limp,and I can tell yeh who yeh are.”  
Harry, suddenly terrified, only managed to stare at Hagrid blankly.  
“I-I fell d-down some s-st-stairs.” he stuttered.  
“Now, Harry, that’s ridiculous,” said Hagrid. “the Boy-Who-Lived doesn’t simply fall down stairs. Now what happened?”  
Harry stared at Hagrid for a long time before he gathered up the courage to tell the truth for the first time since he had first cried out to his aunt.  
“Dudley pushed me.”  
Hagrid let out a sound that was nearly a growl.  
“What else?” he demanded.  
So Harry told him everything. The long days, and sometimes even weeks locked in his small cupboard. The many, many times Dudley had hit him and simply been praised for “expressing himself”. Years of serving the Dursleys supper, and hearing them openly curse his parents, and being pushed around at school by Dudley’s gang, and everything, everything else.  
Hagrid listened, growing visibly angrier with every word Harry spoke. By the end of the monologue he was beet-red and huffing angrily.  
“Well yer certainly not going back there until start of term!” he exploded.  
Harry nodded vigorously.  
“We’ll find a place for yeh. I suppose it’s my turn to tell yeh about yerself, then,” he said heavily.  
And so Harry watched, his eyes growing wider and wider as Hagrid told the story of Voldemort, the Dark wizard who had rampaged through magical Britain, and of Harry’s parents, who had stood up to the Dark Lord and gone into hiding, and Sirius Black, a former friend who had betrayed them and led Voldemort to their hiding place, and of Harry himself, only a year of age, who had failed to die at Voldemort’s spell and had instead reflected it and destroyed the evil wizard. Harry’s eyes grew wider still when Hagrid told him that he, Harry, was the only person ever to resist the Killing Curse. He couldn’t stop his bullying cousin, but he could stop a Dark Lord?  
When Hagrid finished his account the two sat in silence for a moment allowing Harry to soak everything in before starting labouriously down to buy Harry’s materials. Harry quietly followed Hagrid down into the darkness of the (goblin!) bank, Gringotts. As they sped through the tunnels Harry clung tightly to Hagrid, who was turning quite green. Finally they reached their vault and stumbled gratefully out of the fast-moving vehicle. The goblin escorting them unlocked the vault and let them inside.  
Harry blinked.  
Harry blinked again.  
“Them gold ones is Galleons,” Hagrid explained. “The silvers are Sickles and the little bronze ones are Knuts. 29 Knuts to a Sickle, and 17 Sickles to a Galleon. Simple, really.”  
Harry blinked once more.


End file.
